


John Playing with Sherlock's Hair

by WilliamAnyaScottHolmes



Series: Twist on a Trope Ficlets [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-23 05:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4864775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilliamAnyaScottHolmes/pseuds/WilliamAnyaScottHolmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an installment in my ficlet prompt series from tumblr, the Twist on a Trope series.</p><p>This ficlet was prompted by jamlockk: "Ooh ooh ooh John playing with Sherlock's hair trope? For your ficlet prompts? xD"</p><p>I twisted it in a not-fun way, so prep for angst.</p><p>TRIGGER WARNINGS: allusions to Sherlock's suicide, nausea/vomiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John Playing with Sherlock's Hair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jamlockk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamlockk/gifts).



John wandered through London on numb legs, barely registering that he was moving at all. The sky was pink with the promise of a fresh, new day, but John knew now that yesterday’s sunrise had been the last he was capable of enjoying. He should have savoured it. He should have savoured a lot of things, because Sherlock was dead.

John’s heavy feet slowed of their own accord as 221 came into view and, for the eighth time since Barts, his jaw muscles spasmed and his mouth and eyes watered as his stomach roiled and threatened to send back the endless mugs of tea forced on him at the Yard. The past seven surges of nausea were suppressible by letting the emergency personnel and investigators distract him, but now John was alone, and worse, he was alone at the door of the building that had been home to him only 24 hours earlier.

John inhaled a deep, ragged breath and hoped the chilled morning air would stabilize his revulsion. As he jammed his clenching left hand into his pocket to search for keys, he wondered blankly why he was even there. His mind drifted along this heavy thought until he found himself standing in the quiet kitchen. His stinging, tired eyes scanned the room and focused on the cascade of deep blue draped over the simple oak chair behind the microscope.  _His dressing gown._  A ninth wave of nausea, the strongest yet, forced John to move faster than he had in hours, pitching him past the refrigerator and through the threshold of the bathroom.

Thrown to his knees, John vomited violently into the toilet, one hand braced on the raised cover and the other clutched to the side of the bowl. Tears from the acidity streamed down his face, and as he reached for a tissue to wipe his mouth and eyes, he collapsed with his back against the wall.

He looked slowly around the room as his eyes cleared, taking in data but leaving it unprocessed. As he adjusted his seating, he gazed wanly at the tub, noting that a shower might do him good. A small shadow behind one of the tub’s clawfeet,  too dark and oddly shaped to be cast by the hall light, stood out against the light tile. Rubbing one eye, then both, John leaned forward with reluctant curiosity, too drained to deal with a mouse on this morning of all mornings. He couldn’t make out any feet, eyes, or tail, so he scooted forward to see what the soft lump could be.

Hair.

It was Sherlock’s hair. A hot jolt surged through John’s core and his breath, which had finally begun to slow after the episode at the toilet, quickened. _Why is a pile of Sherlock’s hair under the tub?_ John thought frantically, trying to solve the mystery before it required him to think about Sherlock for too long.  _Oh_.

* * *

More beakers and graduated cylinders littered the tabletop than John could count, each filled with a different chemical compound. Sherlock had been working in silence for hours, sitting ramrod straight in his wooden chair, when a slight miscalculation led to a fizzing eruption that spit scorching fluid from the main beaker. Sherlock’s yelp of frustration summoned John from his blogging and he nearly doubled over laughing at the sight of the great Sherlock Holmes running for cover into the bathroom, knocking one of the few empty containers to the floor with a shatter. “John!” Sherlock shouted, “Bring the kitchen shears!”

Amusement giving way to worry, John snagged the shears from the counter and hurried to the bathroom. Lab goggles had been tossed to the side and Sherlock was wetting his face with water fanatically. Reaching blindly for the hand towel, he dabbed his eyes and peered at his reflection in the mirror as he turned off the tap. “Some of the spray hit my face, but it looks like I rinsed in time.” He turned his head and pulled at a section of hair. “Singed,” Sherlock said with a disappointed frown. “Did you bring the shears?”

John grinned and held them up as he made eye contact with Sherlock in the mirror, walking toward his dripping, idiot flatmate. “Yeah, but let me do it, will you? For all your brilliance, you still can’t see the back of your head.” Rolling his eyes, Sherlock dropped the lid of the toilet with a bang and sat so John wouldn’t have to reach.

John began by running a hand through Sherlock’s curls, finding the areas with burnt sections and noting the parts that were undamaged. He realized that he had never touched Sherlock’s hair before, though he’d always wondered about its texture. Now that he was thinking about it, he had never touched Sherlock so tenderly before at all. When the point arrived that Sherlock would get suspicious if John didn’t start cutting, John lifted the shears to begin trimming, wishing he had an excuse to keep touching.

Too soon, every singed hair was snipped and lay on the floor, and John put down the shears, running all ten fingers through one last time. Sherlock’s eyes fluttered open slowly and he hummed quietly. John stepped back and looked at the flawless figure before him, Sherlock’s face no longer damp from his frantic rinse. “Um, all set, then. You clean up the mess in here and I’ll take care of the broken glass in the kitchen, yeah?” John suggested softly, holding eye contact a moment too long before he took a quick breath and turned toward the doorway. As he entered the hall, he heard Sherlock’s quiet baritone rumble, “Thank you.”

* * *

Reaching a shaking hand toward the soft mass of damaged clippings, John blinked back accumulating tears. When his fingertips were centimeters from these relics of their first and only undeniably intimate moment, he closed his eyes and let out a shaking breath. He sank his fingers into the cumulus of downy hair as he dropped his forehead slowly against the lip of the tub, silent tears finally rolling from his eyes to splash on the tile below.


End file.
